Lavrov urges OSCE to improve state of national minorities in Europe

KIEV, December 05. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has urged the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) to improve the state of ethnic minorities.

Speaking at the 20th session of the Council of OSCE Foreign Ministers currently underway in Kiev, Lavrov said it was necessary deal with massive non-citizenship inside the European Union where hundreds of thousands of people were deprived of the right to vote and education in the native language.

“We urge the new OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, Mrs. Astrid Thors, to carry out the predecessor’s recommendations,” the Russian minister said.

“European culture is incompatible with connivance of attempts to revise history, glorify Nazis and their accomplices, and spread the ideas of neo-Nazism and extremism,” Lavrov said, adding “In light of 40th anniversary in 2015 and the 70th anniversary of World War II the OSCE should expose its position in order to be worthy of memory of those who gave lives for the freedom and independence.